Flashbacks: A natural process of healing.

Great information, thanks for posting it. I'd just add that "outside the range of normal human experience" is a vague term and for all of us the threshold of sensitivity is different. Those with very sensitive nervous systems will experience PTSD and flashbacks more easily than those who are more resistant to external influences. It's important to keep that in mind and not shame yourself for having stress responses where others do not.

Can flashbacks manifest themselves in daydreams?

Yes, they can. Often I'll be thinking of one thing, then some of that junk sneaks in the thru the side door.

its a very uncomfortable feeling having to have flashbacks of my childhood trauma I had to go through. I hate at night having dreams of my dad and his abusive ways and all the hate he had in his heart at that time. I now know it wasn't him. it was his addict inside making him be the dick of a man he was. there is not one day that I don't remember or have flashbacks of the bs that both my mom and dad put me and my siblings through and im sick of it. im crying out for help and know at least one person out there can be a support person for me during this hard and uncomfortable time.

I thank you for this article, it reassured me today. I had a bad dream last night and that helpless feeling, the struggle and desperation hit me and I started having images of my real life trauma. I tried Breathing, Grounding techniques. Healing comes so painfully. I have PTSD and I have Bi-polar 1 Disorder along with anxiety. I don't always mention my flashbacks to my fiancé. I already load him down with my Bi-polar disorder and anxiety. I'm also afraid he won't understand. Your mention of confiding in someone really hit home.I'm gonna speak up and let him know what my triggers are and maybe he will understand a little better, and I can be relieved.

This is the first time I've read this thread..

Odd, i thought i'd read all the stickies in here but i'm really glad that i found this one today.. it has some really useful and helpful information in.

I usually have emotional flashbacks rather than the usual variety.. usually i'll just feel very little and very lost.. very hopeless and utterly worthless.

When i do get visual flashbacks, i'm always centred firmly in the present as well - i'll be aware that i'm having a flashback and am able to understand this. I'm not able to stop them and i have to allow them to take me with them but i'm always aware of it being a flashback.
Today though i was standing in the kitchen lost in thought as i was thinking about what to have for dinner and there was a sudden noise.. it was the sound of a key in the lock..
I found myself as a small (ish) and scared child again.. startled at the sound of my parents bedroom door opening..
I was there for only a second or two and then quickly flashed back to my normal adult state.. completely and utterly bewildered as to quite how that happened.
I don't know what that noise really was but it was the exact sound of the key quickly turning in that lock all those years ago.
wow.. weird.

I am a survivor of domestic abuse, and have been on a journey of healing for the last 3 years.
What a journey it has been.
I suffer from PTSD and have flash back occasionally. They literally drag me straight back to the depths of the abuse and it feels like it is happening all over again. The thing about the flash backs is they come out of nowhere and really slap you in the face. There are certain situations that they become worse. They come on if I am in an uncomfortable environment or have over steps my boundaries.
I actually didn't really know what they were, and literally thought I was losing my mind. It's always nice to know that I am not alone and there are people going through the same thing. And to get some coping mechanisms also, thank you for the forum.

Can't remember where I read it, maybe it was that book on Complex PTSD with the blue cover that flashbacks serve a purpose, albeit a traumatic one, that will keep on replaying until the original trauma is dealt with - i.e. acknowledged, soothed, healed and thus the resolution is completed.

Memory is a tricky thing in trauma and completely unpredictable, it will flash on and off seemingly randomly, or is it? Maybe it's the psyche's way of self-protection - this you will know and this better left alone because it no longer serves me, so it flashes what it needs to in order to bring awareness to what it still needs, in either a warning signal or a positive reinforcement.

There is however a middle path and it's a very fine path, almost invisible, yet it's there from birth. It's been put there for this very purpose and that is to create a new neuropathway. What it is and what it translates to is awareness of the trauma/trigger - but that's easy enough as it gets our attention whether we want to or not - and then TIMING the reaction. All that's needed to go from the trigger to a full-blown panic attack or lashing out is one milisecond or less. It's literally as fast as the speed of light. And then comes placement.

In between the trauma/trigger and the final categorization/compartmentalization is that moment in time of choice.

Trauma/Trigger <> <-------- space for compartmentalization <> split second <> choice <> process of creation of neuropathway completed (or reinforcement of the original trauma where instead of going into the middle I swerve back into the trauma etched pathways). That split second <> is the genesis of a new branch from which a new order of thinking, feeling, sensory processing will then take root and become greater than the sum its previous parts.

This is theory based on texts and what we already know of neurons and how pathways are created. Unfortunately, the overwhelming sensations of anxiety get the best of the rest of us, myself included where I go from 0 to 1000 in a flash and in between that I would need great assistance to move into the inherent space where miracles of new life can happen. Trusting someone enough with that in itself for me would be in the realm of a miracle.

is it possible to have a flashback that is a dream/nightmare. before it came in pieces at a time i had them so many times yet i would wake up each time never really seeing it to the end. weird thing is i remember that day when i was little but this part(the dream/nightmare) of that day seems to be blurry until those dreams/nightmares came its like i blocked out that part only. now i just keep having it all the time. what do i do

On a personal level, I that it was when I was in that twilight period, not deep sleep but not conscious thought, my mind would run and sometimes it joined up the dots, so I could see things I could not when awake.